mike ramm's blog entry piqued my interest and i had some thoughts on his thoughts on the poll.
Question No. 1: Did you pursue a position in project management or did you "fall into it"?
Answers:
- By choice: 30%
- By accident: 70%
Question No. 2: Did you have formal project management training before your first assignment?
Answers:
- Yes: 15%
- No: 85%
in my years in consulting i generally find that there is a strange truth to that. if you are a good PM that had been converted to a PM from a technical role, then you are generally assigned to projects (often multiple) as they become available. you are so valued (after all, you understand the technology and the PM role) that you are always utilized and are never free for formal training. does this mean that upper management does not value PMs? i assert that upper managers highly prize PMs with proven track records, regardless of training or certifications.
Question No. 3: Do you consider project management a long-term career or a "stepping-stone" in your professional aspirations?
Answers:
- Career: 60%
- Stepping-stone: 40%
4 comments:
Hi consultant,
What you wrote sonds very insulting for those technical people who become PMs. You wrote "because good PMs are highly valued, and thus, often unavailable". You've made a typing mistake. You should have written "highly expensive" and then everything comes in place.
This is how it sounds to me as if the manager speaks:
"Hey, I need a good PM but they are too expensive and I cannot afford them. So I want you to become a PM because you are cheap. I have too much work for you because I wasted too much time not hiring a good PM and thus you won't be able to have a formal training because I will give you no time for that. And also, you don't have a chance to climb the management career ladder because you aren't sufficiently trained... But I value you very much!".
Sounds like Catch 22, doesn't it? I think your post just supports my arguments.
i think my point has been missed or i was unclear.
a good PM is not unavailable because they are a rare commodity. in most consulting organizations (not resource augmentation or body shops) a PM and a technical resource command the same rate, so i don't feel PMs are "highly expensive".
what happens is that a PM is not available from the pool of PMs at an organization for a given project. so a technical lead is put in place because upper management does not value PMs, but a PM role is required either by the client or by the organizations process. after all, how hard can it be to update a task list? says the upper manager.
in my experience being that technical person that is given the PM role, i feel the PM role is undervalued and not well understood by most.
and in most organizations you can not climb the corporate ladder without leadership experience and running a program or project. at least for projects that must run $MM.
I was saying exactly the same thing :-)
You guys sound like you are describing the first phase of the peter principle.
It's great for talentd tech leads to get the opportunity to step up. That's part of the whole career development process. And as PMs step up and deliver (of fail cataclysmically and chage companies) they get bigger projects and more responsibility.
Where things get messy is when someone gets a project beyond their capacity. Most people in this situatio don't feel they can go for help, and often their (our) bosses aren't paying enough attention to notice until things are well out of control.
But that's a whole other conversation isn't it.
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